“The FCC won’t let me be or let me be me so let me see. They try’n shut me down on MTV but it just feels so empty without me.”– Marshall Bruce Mathers III

There are very, very few stories that could have brought me back here. I left my post at the 300’s due to the pro-Bieber regime’s constraints on this peacock’s ability to fly. I said I would never come back and I didn’t. Not when 100000 Patriots went down for the year. Not when UFC 217 saw 3 titles change hands, eye-rollingly becoming the most overrated PPV of all time (Cody-TJ could have gone either way, JJ gets hit every fight, just never got stopped, GSP is GSP, stfu), I think Tiger came and went 4 times but I can’t keep up. My point is through all of this, with entire blogs written in my head I stayed dormant, a keyboard-laden Bruce Wayne choosing to hole up in Wayne Manor rather than engage in internet battles I was deemed unworthy to fight in. That ends here. That ends now.

The New York Giants have decided to bench Eli Manning to give Geno Smith a look down the home stretch of a lost, fruitless season. And the New York sports media is FUCKING. OUTRAGED. They are saying the Giants are ending the Eli era in the most “ugly way possible”, which must mean they are taking a Manning family photo at some point in the near future. They’re bitterly saying Ben McAdoo only did this to save his job, as if Geno going 5-0 and leading the Giants to a playoff-less 7-9 season will do the trick. Mike Francesa is hitting the organization with school yard insults and may march up to Giants HQ with an angry mob and torches demanding the Beast release Belle. They’re saying this is at the wrong way to treat a man of class and grace, as if Eli isn’t just a robot that does what Daddy tells him (It just dawned on me the Manning Brothers are just two versions of the QB from “Mr. Deeds”.) The NY sports media is butthurt. They’re angry. They’re legitimately throwing a shit fit like only the has-been sports media can. It’s fucking bizarre. Anyway, I understand I’m a Pats fan and it’s easy to say I’m just biased, but look:

I get it.

The not-originator-but-master of the Manning Incredulous Facial Expression was the face of the only two NY teams to win anything in the past decade. Throw in Jersey and Connecticut and I believe Thanksgiving Day has been the only other cause of a parade in the Tri-State area for a long time. He threw two iconic Hail Mary’s to win two Super Bowls – the fact that two anonymous receivers made a pair of obscene catches on kind of lousy throws seems irrelevant for some reason, but I digress.

And so I get it.

The things is, the two years the Giants won the Super Bowl it took a GIGANTIC team effort, not just Eli pulling David Tyrees out of a hat. Their defense in particular played out of their tree’s both years. Additionally, since that 2011 Super Bowl Eli has gone one-and-done at best in the playoffs, missing them completely in the years he doesn’t bow out after one game. He has led the league in interceptions three times, his passer rating sucks year in and year out, and OH IN CASE YOU FORGOT, the Giants would never have to be these “legendary,” Cinderella teams if he didn’t always play like particular ass the first eight weeks of every Goddam season.

In the end, if we could all settle down a moment, the real truth of this whole overblown mess is pretty clear: There are five games left in a lost season. There’s a former 2nd Round pick with some natural gifts sitting on the bench. There are some other pieces on the team, but also some other holes that may be more worth addressing with early draft picks than the Quarterback position if either Geno Smith or Davis Webb could be the answer there. I understand your 37 year old “Aw, Shucks” looking QB has semi-inexplicably become some sort of icon in the way so many New York icons have, but he sucks. And he has sucked. And don’t get me started with this ridiculous “Games Consecutively Started Streak.” It reminds me of when we had a competition in high school over who could wear the same pair of pants the longest number of days in a row. Plus, would you rather this or sit him for the last game at the Meadowlands? Maybe cut him in the offseason to little fanfare? You can’t even answer that question, can you Tri-City?